Resistance exercise has become more popular in countries throughout the world as a means to exercise the body to generally enhance health. Workouts on such exercise equipment provide an excellent means to maintain fitness of muscles, bones and the circulatory system, while concurrently providing a means for burning calories to aid in weight control and reduction. Because of the ease of use exercise machines targeted to muscle groups provide to users, as opposed to free weights, such exercise machines have become ever more popular in recent decades.
Such resistive exercise machines have developed over time in a manner where the machines have been specially designed and constructed to target exercise to specific muscles and muscle groups during repetitive use of a specialized machine. Consequently, users of such devices are able to pick and use resistance exercise machines which are specially designed to target the exercise to specialized muscles and muscle groups which each user chooses.
It is widely thought that most individuals will benefit from improving the strength and flexibility of the body structures of the hip and pelvic region. The human pelvis communicates force and energy of body movements between the lower body to the upper body. It is well known that when there is a proper muscular and physical relationship between the pelvis and the hip joints, such may tend to reduce the chance of injury during exercise and more importantly, during daily living activities such as bending and lifting objects.
One preferred method for maintaining such a balanced and proper relationship between the pelvis and hip joints, and the muscles of the body connected therewith, is exercising the muscles of the pelvis/hip complex, in sequential movements or repetitions against a resistive force. The pelvis and hip muscle complex includes the gluteal muscles including the gluteus minimus, the gluteus medius and the gluteus maximus muscles which have been shown to be critical in maintaining strength and muscle balance of the hip and lower back region of the body. Exercising this region also has been shown to maintain or increase bone strength as well as the strength of connective ligaments.
The pelvis and hip muscle complex also plays a critical role in the position of the sacrum, which in turn drives the position of the pelvis, which in turn drives the position of the remainder of both the lower and upper spine. During exercise and during normal daily activities during any given day, stress and strain during body movements are communicated to these muscle groups. Such can occur during movements such as during walking, running, cycling, jumping, skipping, swimming, lifting, or other normal daily movements. It is thus important to avoid injury, strain, and the resulting pain, and to maintain bone mass and connective tissue strength, that the gluteal muscles noted, are exercised frequently and properly.
However, most people, including those visiting fitness centers, fail to properly exercise the gluteal muscles properly or in a frequency which will provide the benefits that such exercise as noted above, imparts. Such a failure to exercise this muscle group is not entirely the fault of most people.
A primary reason for this lack of effective and frequent exercise of this important muscle group, is the lack of equipment configured to position the body to directly exercise the gluteus maximus muscles and the bones and joints and ligaments connecting them, in an exercise properly directed along the sagittal plane. Conventionally, available exercise machines adapted for resistance exercise for the gluteus maximus muscles, are either intended for other purposes and very hard to use, or require unsupported positioning of the user during use which fails to direct the load of the resistance to the gluteus maximus muscles properly. Such machines fail to focus the resistance load, during exercise, directly to the gluteus maximus during movement along the sagittal plane, and position the body of the user in positions where leg and other muscle groups are involved in an unfocused manner.
Further, such conventionally available exercise machines fail to provide structure to position the body of the user in an exercise position, configured to direct motion during their exercise, primarily along the sagittal plane. Thus, users are not able to comfortably isolate and thereby target and communicate the resistance load, during exercise, to the gluteus maximus muscles, with safety and precision. Consequently, users are left with uncomfortable, sometimes even painful modes and machinery with which to attempt proper exercise of the gluteus maximus muscles. Further, these available exercise machines are inefficient and require excessive repetitions and use due to the lack of a configuration which targets the resistance load during use, to exercise the gluteus maximus muscles.
As such their exists an unmet need, for an exercise device and method which is easily employed and comfortable during use. Such an exercise device should position the user comfortably and properly such that during use, the exercise movement runs substantially along the sagittal plane, and should not require a spotter. Such an exercise device should provide means to communicate a resistive force or load during exercise, in a highly targeted fashion in an isolated and directed manner, directly to the gluteus maximus muscles, thereby making it more efficient for users.
The forgoing examples of related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive, and they do not imply any limitations on the exercise device and method described and claimed herein. Various limitations of the related art are already known or will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading and understanding of the specification below and the accompanying drawings.